this is a command to install a tar.gz -
"xzvf /home/bob/compressedfile.tar.gz"

but where do i type this code after extracting it?

thanks for the help anyone.

you can either type the following command from the command line:
bob/Linux> tar xzvf compressedfile.tar.gz <-That is to decompress the files into a folder, then you cd into the newly created folder and you either read the README or the INSTALL file to properly make/configure for your system.

Or if you are using a GUI, then you can use an archive manager to extract the files to a location, then drop to the command line and cd into that folder and you either read the README or the INSTALL file to properly make/configure for your system.